Yes it will. We currently have...

1) Pundits saying "nobody will buy the N9, that would be stupid"
2) Customers saying "f*ck it, this phone looks cool!"

Will it be at a disadvantage? Obviously. But there are millions of people who buy Symbian devices, or Web OS devices (or hell, the N900), well knowing that these don't offer a competitive app market.

There are still millions of people who buy smartphones and then never (or hardly ever) even install applications. You will find them less hanging on mobile phone forums though...

There are very vocal iPhone users expressing the opinion that apps are overrated, and they want the N9 if it just does the basic things very well.

Even online polls show ridiculous amounts of people who want to buy one. Whether or not they will actually do so, the desire appears to be there. Not all of them are stupid.

A high-end device like the N9 is also more likely to be bought by people who can afford to be disappointed a few years down the line. Not everyone sees their mobile phone as an "investment", for many it is just a luxury good. They want the N9 because it's awesome now, and don't mind to get a new phone (and possibly buy into a new ecosystem) in a few years or even sooner.

There are many people who still like Nokia, but have moved to the iPhone or Android because Nokia did not have anything like the N9 in their portfolio. This austrian guy exactly said specifically that they are addressing such people (and iPhone users in general, who so far are responding _extremely_ positively to the N9).

The Nokia N8 sold about 4 million, the N9 is vastly ahead in customer (and media) interest so far. The N8 has also been running on a "dead" platform.

The app market is not nearly as dead as frequently stated, with the plan being to have a large number of Symbian applications ported and the possibilities of Qt. Working on a Qt port is not going to be wasted effort anytime soon, and porting a Qt Symbian (or other) application to the N9 will only require some UI tweaks.

In other words, there will be applications, high quality applications too. Getting the N9 is not in investment in the future, no. But it still is an investment in the present.

I don't want to convince you, I just don't like the negativity so I give you some arguments for why I think that the N9 may well become a success.